After 10 years of war, Syrians are on the verge of starvation, according to the World Food Program. Millions of hard-pressed Syrians go to bed hungry and cold every night.
”Please stop asking us about the pandemic,” Amar, a teacher, told me on a WhatsApp line. ”We cannot afford to worry about the coronavirus. We are struggling to get food on the table. If this table isn’t sold, we don’t eat. We are now selling our furniture to buy bread. At night, we hug our children tight to protect them from the cold. We have neither electricity nor gas to warm our houses.”
Amar’s salary is approximately $20 a month in U.S. currency. He, his wife, and two children live in a two-bedroom apartment. The rent is $20 a month. His wife Leyla has tried to find work, but it has been impossible. Instead, she walks from one charity organization to another to find food. She tells me that they have to pay $6 for electricity every month (12 hours a day). Every month they go short. Leyla says that before the sanctions, at least her cousin in Germany could send them some money. Because of the sanctions, that’s not possible anymore.
A pound of meat costs $4, a pound of tea $3, bulgur or rice $1.50, and so on.
”We cannot afford to buy either meat, chicken, or vegetables, and we are not among the poorest. We are supposed to be middle class, or at least were,” Leyla says. She hopes that none of her family members will get sick — ”that would cost a fortune, as medicine and hospitals are very expensive.”
In June last year, President Donald Trump’s administration put new economic sanctions on Syria, targeting the Syrian President Bashar Assad. Since then, inflation has increased to its highest level. After being one of the most flourishing countries in the Middle East, Syria now has streets filled with beggars and homeless people.
In December, Miriam Rasho, my colleague — a board member of A Demand for Action, the Sweden-based charity I founded — went from Sweden to Damascus to write a report about the impact of the sanctions on the Syrian people. During her visit, she was shocked by the number of beggars on the street. Their numbers have doubled from when she was in the country during Christmas 2019. In her first article, she asks how many more would be on the streets if more than a quarter of the population had not fled the country.
The Syrian population before the war was 21 million. According to UNICEF, the Syrian refugee crisis remains the largest displacement crisis in the world, with 5.6 million registered refugees, including over 2.5 million children, living in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey. In 2020, the situation in all affected countries was further aggravated by COVID-19 and the subsequent economic downturn. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, there are 6.2 million people, including 2.5 million children, displaced within Syria, the biggest internally displaced population in the world.
Almost half of Syria’s population is in need of aid, both in government-held and opposition-controlled areas.
Patriarchs of churches of the Middle East, diplomats, parliamentarians, and scholars from around the world sent an open letter on Jan. 21 to President Biden urgently requesting that he lift the economic sanctions against Syria.
Among them is Ignatius Aphrem II, patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church, known to many Americans because before he became the global head of his church, he was the archbishop of the Eastern United States. He now resides in Damascus, the capital of Syria.
”President Biden, in his first day in the Oval Office, has signed several Executive Orders to correct what is wrong,” said the patriarch when I reached him in Syria. “We also hope he will listen to our plea and lift the sanctions to end the misery of millions of Syrians. Children are literally starving because of the embargo against Syria. People are dying from the lack of medicine and adequate medical supplies. The harsh winter conditions are further increasing the suffering of the people since fuel is not available to heat their homes. Even bread, essential for Syrian family diet, is not readily available. It’s very hard to watch all these and not be able to take action.”
The letter was prompted by a report by Alena Douhan, the United Nations special rapporteur on unilateral coercive measures. In the report issued on Dec. 29, 2020, Douhan expressed her concern that imposed sanctions would exacerbate the already dire humanitarian situation in Syria, especially during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, exposing Syrian people to the risks of major human rights violations.
The letter emphasized the fact that “millions of hard-pressed Syrians go to bed hungry and cold,” stressing that the unilateral sanctions imposed by the U.S. add to their economic plight. It added, “We believe that the legitimate national interests of the U.S. can be pursued without collectively punishing the Syrian people by means of economic sanctions.”
The U.S. and the European Union must adopt alternatives to comprehensive sanctions on Syria. The international community should not impose collective suffering on innocent civilians for the sins of their governments. The entire human rights canon is premised on the inherent dignity of the individual.
Nuri Kino is an independent investigative, multi-award-winning reporter and minority rights expert. He is the founder of A Demand for Action and #tellcorona.
